Different types of equipment to add materials to pressurized pipelines are known in the art of materials handling. Some of this equipment is commercially available while others of this type of equipment exist only in laboratory and pilot plant operations.
See U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,723 which describes and claims a rotary valve for batching and charging loose materials, for instance granular, chipped or otherwise comminuted substances, into a container under internal pressure.
Also see U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,145 which describes and claims a rotary-type metering device making it possible to dispense granular substances consisting of fine particles which are difficult to handle. The metering device consists of a spherical core rotating around a horizontal axis inside a casing comprising a feed orifice and an outlet orifice.
Also see U.S. Pat. No. 4,687,381 which describes and claims a device and process for introducing a powder with catalytic activity into a fluidized bed polymerization reactor.
When the pressurized liquid is compressed air, a reference describing an automatic drain system is U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,240 which describes an automatic drain system for compressed air systems, air dryers, aftercoolers, separators and the like, which eliminates the loss of compressed air and is not clogged by sediment in the accumulated liquid or slurry.
It would be desirable to have a system of equipment that provided for the addition of solid materials to a pipeline, that also provided for optimal contact of the solid material with the liquid in the pipeline and also permitted addition of solid materials to a pressurized pipeline.